Senior Product Partnership Manager

Job Summary

Scope of the Role

This role is responsible for building and scaling a new strategic capability within LegalShield: a curated ecosystem of third-party legal service partners who provide specialized, fixed-fee legal services to members. Today, LegalShield fulfills all member legal needs through its provider law firm network; this role introduces an additional fulfillment channel designed to expand capacity, improve outcomes in select practice areas, and optimize unit economics.

The leader in this role will define and execute the end-to-end partner strategy, including identifying which legal practice areas are best suited for third-party fulfillment, sourcing and evaluating partners, structuring commercial agreements, and designing how partner services integrate into the member experience. This includes owning both strategic design and operational execution across a new function that does not yet have established playbooks.

Key responsibilities include:

Building and owning a portfolio of third-party legal service partners across priority practice areas (e.g., estate planning, family law, immigration, bankruptcy, business formation, real estate, IP)

Determining when work should flow to provider law firms versus external partners based on member demand, capacity constraints, economics, geography, and complexity

Designing the end-to-end partner lifecycle, including sourcing, diligence, negotiation, onboarding, integration, performance management, and renewal/termination decisions

Partnering closely with Product, Engineering, Legal, Finance, Provider Services, Sales, and Marketing to embed partner services into the LegalShield ecosystem

Redesigning member experience journeys and backend operational workflows to seamlessly integrate partner services into the LegalShield product experience

Leading a dedicated squad while influencing and coordinating across shared product and engineering resources

Serving as the primary architect of a new fulfillment channel within a regulated, membership-based legal services business

This is a high-ownership, zero-to-one individual contributor role — not a team leadership position. There are no direct reports. What there is: broad strategic scope, direct access to senior leadership, and the expectation that you'll drive outcomes by doing the work and influencing others, not by managing a broader product team.

The person in this role will flex across altitudes constantly — setting partnership strategy with the CPO in one meeting, negotiating contract terms with a partner in the next, and writing product requirements for an integration the same afternoon. Success requires strong product thinking, commercial acumen, operational rigor, and the ability to build structure where none exists. You'll lead through the quality of your work and the clarity of your recommendations, not through org chart authority.

Responsibilities

Performance Outcomes

Success in this role will be measured across four core outcomes:

1. Launch and Prove the Partner Model

• Stand up the first wave of third-party legal service partnerships in priority practice areas

• Successfully deliver end-to-end member experiences through partner fulfillment (intake → referral → completion)

• Validate unit economics that demonstrate partner fulfillment is viable and scalable

• Establish measurable proof points for quality, speed, and cost compared to provider network fulfillment

2. Expand Member Value Without Cannibalizing the Core

• Increase the breadth of legal services available to members through new partner capabilities

• Ensure partner expansion does not negatively impact provider law firm relationships or economics

• Identify and scale areas where partners improve access, coverage, or specialization without degrading core fulfillment

3. Build a Repeatable Partner Operations Function

• Create standardized frameworks for sourcing, vetting, contracting, onboarding, and managing partners

• Establish scalable operating processes that reduce marginal effort for each new partner added

• Develop governance models, scorecards, and decision frameworks for expansion, renegotiation, and termination

4. Drive Measurable Member Impact

• Improve member satisfaction for partner-fulfilled legal matters

• Increase utilization in previously underserved or capacity-constrained practice areas

• Demonstrate retention and lifetime value improvements tied to expanded service offerings

• Support monetization opportunities through partner-enabled services where applicable

Education, Knowledge, and Experience

Must-Have Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Business Administration or a related field.

• 8–12+ years in product management, business development, partnerships, or platform strategy

• 3–5+ years in a senior leadership or principal-level role with end-to-end ownership responsibilities

• Proven experience building and managing a portfolio of third-party partners or vendors (not single-point integrations or isolated deals)

• Proven experience redesigning end-to-end customer or member journeys to integrate strategic partners into a unified experience. (to include things like: mapping the current-state user journeys, identifying handoff and friction points, and reshaping user flows)

• Experience in subscription, membership, or recurring-revenue business models

• Strong background in services-oriented industries such as legal, insurance, healthcare, financial services, or employee benefits (preferred over pure SaaS environments)

• Demonstrated ability to operate in matrixed organizations and influence cross-functional roadmaps without direct control of all teams involved

• Strong financial modeling capability, including P&L ownership, unit economics modeling, and business case development

• Executive-level communication skills with the ability to simplify complex tradeoffs into clear decision frameworks

Strong Differentiators

• Experience launching and managing multiple fulfillment or distribution channels alongside an existing core channel

• Complex commercial negotiation experience (pricing structures, SLAs, exclusivity, data-sharing, termination provisions)

• Background in regulated industries with jurisdictional variation (legal, insurance, healthcare, financial services)

• Experience in marketplace, platform, or network-based business models

• Experience designing and executing pilot programs or experimentation frameworks for scaling new partner models

• Prior exposure to legal services, identity protection, or adjacent membership-based service ecosystems

• Experience operating in transformation-stage organizations without established operating frameworks

Core Knowledge Areas

• Partner ecosystem design and lifecycle management

• Unit economics, margin modeling, and cost-to-serve analysis

• Customer/member journey design and cross-system workflow architecture

• Regulatory and compliance considerations in legal or similarly regulated environments

• Stakeholder management across executive, operational, and external partner groups

Reporting & Scope

• Reports to: Chief Product Officer

• Key internal partners: Sr PM (Intake & Routing), PM (Lawyer Service Products), Head of Legal, Provider Services Network VP, Sales & Associate Leadership, Marketing, Finance, Technology

• Location: Ada, OK (HQ) or Remote with Travel

FLSA Status

Exempt

Physical Requirements/ Work Environment

The work environment characteristics and physical demands described here are representative of these employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Primarily office-based or hybrid work environment depending on company policy

• Extended periods of computer-based work including product documentation, analysis, and communication

• Frequent virtual and in-person meetings with i